Re-marks are back. All 10 sent up, all made a grade change!! Yippee!! ....but should we have had to resort to requesting these re-marks?

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Good to see you got such positive results from your remarks and no, you shouldn't have had to resort to requesting the remarks.
Does anyone have any stats on which subjects have the most request for remarks and which subjects have most resultant changes in grades?
Do the exam boards have an acceptable level of error? Or alternatively are the exam boards given an acceptable level of error by their governing body (whoever that is) before they are asked to explain themselves or action is taken?

It probably is. It has been a thoroughly enjoyable thread which has highlighted many issues (being sad, I have re-read all the posts!) and has had a positive effect on the world of examining. As we enter another phase in GCSE testing (albeit a familiar one to those of us who have been teaching for so long), I wonder what the future holds.

I wonder if the new GCSE will have a better spread of marks across the grades. Current GCSE can have grades A to E squeezed into 9 marks. Eg Higher Listening 27 for an A but 18 would have been an E. 9 marks out of 45 cover 5 grades.

As I recall in pre UMS days each unit was allocated a nominal number of points say 5 at higher 3 at foundation and these were allocated according to the physical mark you got on the paper. For example, if the higher listening had 30 marks, 0-2= 0 points 3-10= 1 point 11-15= 2 points, 16-20= 3 points, 21-26= 4 points and 27-30= 5 points. So it mattered not if you got 26 or 30, they both were worth 5 points whereas on UMS every mark you scored counted.

Tier of entry - candidates at the bottom end of Higher risk scoring a U.
Grades are determined by % of pupils getting a certain mark across the country.
So does deciding tier of entry involve some amount of second guessing what decision other schools are making?